Parx Casino Pa., is crowded on a Wednesday this spring. / JOHN ZIOMEK/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

What visitors said at Parx in Bensalem, Pa.:John Madden, 56, of Philadelphia: “I’ve been going to Atlantic City since casinos opened. I don’t like it here. This is only the second time I’ve been here. I had some time to kill. Atlantic City? I like the shows, the comps, the looser slots. They’ll take your shoes here.” Barbara Marrazzo, 64, of Yardville, Pa: “I don’t like to drive. I love it here. Poker, keno, high-end slots. I win more at slots here, more at tables there.” Harold Borgen, 69, who is wearing a jacket from an Atlantic City casino: “I like Atlantic City. It’s very nice. The comps are easier. There’s nothing here for entertainment. The players are nicer in Atlantic City. But you can’t argue. They are making money.” Maureen Andrews, 75, of Croyden, Pa., who is visiting with friends from “grammar school”: “Atlantic City is better with amenities. And they have more to do on the boardwalk. But this is local.” What visitors said at Revel in Atlantic City:Steven Schwartz, 63, of Abingdon, Md., a former Delaware Park slot employee:“We’ve been here before, but we don’t really like it. My wife was eligible for a room here, but we could never get through and book the room. If you want to be a casino, be a casino. If you want to be a resort, be a resort. But you can’t be a casino without gambling. And Revel doesn’t know gambling. But I like Atlantic City.” Carol Schwartz, 63, Abingdon, Md., a top-rated slot player at Borgata, playing at Revel because she was comped with free play: “It’s empty here. It’s hard to eat here. There’s no buffet or deli. The food is too fancy. My favorite in Atlantic City is Borgata. They have comedy shows every night, several buffets, good comps. They backed off on comps here. They need to refocus on gamblers.”

Cost of convenience

Convenience casinos with fewer amenities — dismissed recently by a Tropicana casino executive Tony Rodio as “Walmarts with slot machines and a bar and a restaurant” — are placed in or near major population centers.

That is a far different business model from New Jersey’s dozen full-service casinos clustered in an oceanside resort dogged by intractable urban issues.

Regional competition “will continue to grow for the next few years. The expansion is faster and broader than expected,” said Weinert, who points to continuing expansion plans in nearby states and the likelihood of a second casino coming to the heart of Philadelphia.

Exactly where did all the revenue go?

Brian Tyrrell, the vice president of the New Jersey Travel Industry Association, smiles and shakes his head. He takes out a pen to answer the question.

A professor of tourism at the Richard Stockton College, Tyrrell draws a map of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states as he discusses the proliferation of casinos in what once was an East Coast market monopolized by Atlantic City.

Tyrrell puts a big X over Connecticut and the rest of New England. Too far.

He says to not pay much attention to competition in western New York state and western Pennsylvania. Also too far. And never mind West Virginia — way too far.

He draws an oval stretching from the western end of Long Island to Delaware and suburban Washington.

That is the three-hour or less drive-in market for Atlantic City.

Then he writes: 2005 — $5.9 billion.

Next he writes: 2012 — NY, PA, MD, DE, NJ — $8.9 billion.

Take away New Jersey’s $3 billion in revenue, and that leaves $5.9 billion.

“That’s the core market,” he says, tapping the pen on the oval to emphasize that the amounts are the same. “That’s where New Jersey’s casino revenue went.”

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Skimming off the top

Want to see how nearby states ate Atlantic City’s lunch? Visit Parx Casino in Bensalem, a suburb north of Philadelphia.

At midday midweek, the parking lot is jammed. The license plates show where Parx’s market drives in from: mostly Pennsylvania, then New Jersey, followed by New York. There is a smattering of cars from other states.

A man dressed in a T-shirt bearing the name of the nearby sheet metal company he owns — and has ducked out of for a few hours of gambling – shakes his head at the crowded lot.

“It’s amazing how crowded it is at this hour. PA is skimming New Jersey. A lot of people would rather drive here, drive for a few minutes, rather than drive more than an hour to Atlantic City. I ought to know — I was one of them,” he said as he made his way into the casino.

Unlike Atlantic City, parking at Parx is free.

Unlike Atlantic City, there are no bus programs bringing in gamblers — patrons come by car, on their own schedule.

Unlike Atlantic City, food options are limited. The high-end food outlet during the day is Chickie’s and Pete’s, a sports bar.

Unlike Atlantic City, there are no headline entertainers.

And unlike Atlantic City, the casino is filled with gamblers at midday midweek.

At Parx, 80 percent of the casino’s business comes from within 20 miles.

Besides Parx, there are 11 casinos in Pennsylvania — six not far from New Jersey, especially Harrah’s in Chester, just over the river from New Jersey, and Sugar House in Philadelphia.

Some, such as Sands Bethlehem, have amenities — big-name chefs, comedy shows and headline entertainment — along the lines of Atlantic City’s.

But most are stripped down, nicely appointed warehouses with slot machines.

Welcome to convenience gambling.

That’s the thing the Atlantic City casino executive missed when he derided his competitors in Pennsylvania: Walmart with slot machines works.

“There’s a place for Bloomingdale’s and a place for Walmart,” said Doug Harbach, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. “Pennsylvania is a market of convenience. Casinos here are doing what they need to do to be successful businesses.”

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By this summer, Pennsylvania will have 12 casinos — the same number Atlantic City has — but Pennsylvania already is the bigger market in terms of gaming revenue.

Missed wake-up call

While the sustained decline of Atlantic City’s fortunes is relatively recent, New Jersey, which has had casinos for 35 years, had plenty of time and fair warning about competition.

They just ignored it.

The warning shot came in 1992, the year Foxwoods Resort Casino opened in southeast Connecticut. That year slot growth slowed for the first time in New Jersey.

But when overall casino revenue did not drop, Atlantic City just kept doing exactly as it had done before.

“That should have been a wake-up call. They should have protected their interest,” said Tyrrell, the tourism professor.

“Atlantic City was a destination city with an ocean. That’s difficult to duplicate,” said Tyrrell, who added that the state and the city failed to reinvest in a meaningful way that protected the resort’s interests.

“They treated Atlantic City like a cash cow. They didn’t make the investments they should have been making. Atlantic City missed out,” said Tyrrell.

He particularly faulted the state on several critical issues, such as not expanding service to Atlantic City International Airport, which has been under state control since 1992 (just 1 percent of gamblers arrive by air), failing to make timely expansion improvements to state roadways (projects on the Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City Expressway are ongoing) and adding state-imposed $3 parking fees at casinos.

A recent study by Stockton College found that every form of travel to Atlantic City was down in 2012, overall by 4.3 percent.

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John Palmieri and the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority he leads were charged by Gov. Chris Christie with turning around the city’s fortunes by diversifying its amenities to broaden the resort’s appeal beyond gambling day-trippers.